Q&A: Grandview girls basketball coach Josh Ulitzky talks rankings and early-season schedule
The Grandview Wolves fell short last year. They’ll be the first to say that they did not accomplish what they had hoped to do in 2016.
So with the New (calendar) Year approaching, they’re refocused. They’re reenergized. And wins over Archbishop Mitty (Calif.) and St. Mary’s (Calif.), they’ve show that they can hang with the best teams in the country.
The Wolves may not have won the Class 5A state championship last year, but the experience of losing and the tough early-season schedule have them hunting championship gold for 2017.
Question: How tough is it to come into the season with expectations in the sense that you’re the No. 1 team in the CHSAANow polls, even though you didn’t capture a state title last year?
Ulitzky: I don’t know about the expectation piece. I feel like our kids are pretty focused as a result of what happened last year and how things ended.
I feel like they’ve come back pretty hungry to play well. So I don’t know as far as expectations, as far as that goes, but I know we are certainly getting everybody’s best shot. Which is what we want. So that I think has been more of a thing for our kids.
There is no night off. It’s a great opportunity for us to come out and play consistently and play well, know we are going to get the best game we can get from everybody when we step on the floor.
Q: You faced a couple of teams that are right there with you in the MaxPreps rankings, what does it mean for you guys to hold a couple of wins over them so early in the season?
Ulitzky: I think it’s good for our kids to know that we’re playing a competitive schedule and to be able to pull out some wins against those teams is a big confidence boost for our girls.
I would also say that they know that it makes a bigger target on our back. But I think it helps confidence-wise for the them and it reaffirms all the hard work they’ve put in over the summer and fall.
To some degree, it’s validating for the girls, which I’m happy about. I’m happy for them. It also gives us an idea of what’s out there, which is kind of fun to see where you stack up.
That’s why you come out and compete every day, to see where you stand.
Q: You have some strong seniors with Michaela (Onyenwere) and a couple of the others, but you’re also getting very balanced production from her, Leilah Vigil and Alisha Davis, so how dangerous does that make you when there’s not just one player on a nationally ranked team that people have to focus on?
Ulitzky: I think it helps out just to have balance. Those are the three that everyone knows for points, and you have to score, but also defensively there’s not just one kid you have to deal with.
You have Jaiden Galloway, who played an exceptional tournament down at the Tournament of Champions. Kennede (Brown) had a great tournament. Allyah (Marlett) really came on. So those kids really stepped up across the board and it’s nice to see them push each other.
But certainly it’s nice that you have balance and you can go to multiple places to have options to score or options to defend. That’s a real luxury and it’s nice to be able to have that. It’s nice to have so many kids playing so well.
Q: Do you find your girls paying attention to either the MaxPreps polls or the CHSAANow.com rankings just to see where they’re sitting and how do you keep them grounded if they are?
Ulitzky: I’m guessing they do. We don’t talk about it a lot. I don’t know. In the social media world, I’m sure they’re aware of those things far sooner than I am.
As far as keeping them grounded, they’ve taken more accountability in knowing this is all well and good, but we did not achieve the goal we were hoping for last year. We had quite a bit of that notoriety.
It’s nice, but I think they are also so focused on the end result. Playing our best, playing consistently, particularly in March when pressure is turned up and all that stuff is involved, state championships, playoffs, all those things.
Q: What did you tell your girls when they fell short last year?
Ulitzky: I talked to them about how we wanted to use this to get better. To learn from it so that hopefully we don’t run into the same situation again.
I told them first and foremost that I was going to get to work and I had to do a better job of getting them prepared and ready to play. That falls to me.
Just with the kids I have, I know that they looked at themselves in the mirror and there were things that they wanted to do better and work better on. We really try to look at that as hopefully a learning opportunity and also an opportunity to keep us focused regardless of the situations or games lead up to that moving forward.
Q: So did the way that last year ended serve as the biggest learning tool that this group of girls could’ve had coming into this season?
Ulitzky: Yeah. The emotional experience that you go through is probably the best teacher and from what I’ve seen from my kids, they are driven to not have to go through that experience again.
They want to take the steps to get to the final, to get to the championship that we weren’t able to do.
I think in every facet of life, your experiences shape who you are and what you’re going to do moving forward. So I would certainly apply that to our team.
Q: You play in a league that’s never easy to win, regardless of what sport is being played, so how important was it to schedule Ralston Valley, to play those games out of state in preparation of getting through league and get into March playing the way you want to play?
Ulitzky: I’m excited for the challenge. I told our girls that I tried to schedule the most difficult schedule I could possibly get for us for the next two-year cycle.
I wanted to play Ralston on the road to open, I wanted to play every game on the road, but my AD at the time wouldn’t let me because the reverse-scheduling of next year I guess would make it hard.
I think it’s really important. We want to be challenged at every opportunity. We are challenging ourselves in practice every day. We are trying everything we can to make as competitive as we can possibly get it. We try to simulate game situations to try and be in the pressure cooker and see how we handle those situations.
Hopefully we handle them and learn from our mistakes not just from last year, but from this year as well.
Q: What’s the biggest challenge for you when you’re in the situation of being at No. 1 team and having expectations that are so high?
Ulitzky: I feel like it’s continuing to challenge my kids. Every day in practice, just continuing to push them and to try and get them to where I know they want to be. And then continuing to hold them accountable and those kinds of things.
I don’t think I have to worry about them being complacent. I don’t feel like that’s an issue, but I also want them to be pushed at every opportunity so that at the end of the season, it was worth the energy that we put forward. The challenge that we had.
